The Brave One

[Remo D]

And here it is...

Just a few weeks ago, I was telling you about DEATH SENTENCE... the "anti" Charles Bronson DEATH WISH movie starring Kevin Bacon--based on the nearly apologetic sequel novel from original author Brian Garfield. And I also mentioned that I saw a trailer for a film that looked for all the world like a distaff remake of DEATH WISH, starring Jodie Foster. I was quite startled when the title came up as THE BRAVE ONE--apparently, they were going to pass it off as an original film?!

Naturally, I had to see it for myself. And here are my two immediate reactions. First--when your star is Jodie Foster and your director is Neil Jordan, a bad movie is almost literally out of the question. Of course it's "good." In some instances, even "great." And second--the owners of the DEATH WISH property oughta sue their pants off.

To be fair, THE BRAVE ONE is sufficiently "different" to engage your attention, but the particulars are there... she's a radio journalist who loves New York; she attends an art exhibit and displays interest in a life-size photograph of a fully-loaded gun shop; she and her loving fiancee (Naveen "Sayid" Andrews) are brutally assaulted by muggers--he dies. The police say they'll do what they can but obviously aren't going to do anything. She gets a gun. Bye-bye, muggers. The "vigilante" debate starts up in NYC.

The new twist here is that Terence Howard, as the detective on the case, is similarly frustrated over his inability to remove a well-protected white collar CEO scumbag from society... and he just so happens to strike up a sympathetic relationship with Foster... is he really so thick as to not figure things out for himself, or is he just PRETENDING to be dense so as to let things happen?

This unofficial, unauthorized remake stacks the deck in Foster's favor. Even though she gets herself an illegal handgun, it's strictly for her own protection, and when she opens fire for the first time, it's strictly because the other guy has a gun, too, and he's most assuredly stalking her with intent to kill. So the REAL moment of truth comes in a scene straight out of the Bronson film, in which two black thugs attempt to terrorize her on the subway. And yep, she even pukes into a toilet bowl afterwards.

Oh, about that. The muggers at the beginning are Hispanic, and the muggers on the subway are black. Critics frequently pointed out that the actual DEATH WISH films tried so hard to avoid being called racist by having the muggers appear in all shapes, sizes and colors. But nobody wanted to let go of the potential to disturb here--they desperately wanted to play the card of little, white Jodie Foster being held at knifepoint by two huge, black demons. So how do they get around that? They literally drench us in GOOD black and Middle Eastern characters. The loving Middle Eastern fiancee is a squeaky clean doctor, and Foster also shares commiseration with his grieving mother. The sympathetic detective is black, as is Foster's housekeeper, who keeps popping up like a Greek chorus to dispense wisdom "There are lots of ways to die. But you've gotta find a way to live. Now, THAT's hard" and tell what things were like "back home."

Again, with a cast and director like this, there's no way that the film can fail to "work." Foster is excellent, Jordan stages the shocking moments in a way that will guarantee your empathetic reaction... but even the Bronson film (much as Brian Garfield disliked it) was more ambiguous as to whether vigilantism was a solution or an additional problem.

Need evidence? DEATH SENTENCE was the ANTI-vigilante film. It was effective as hell, and technically the equal of THE BRAVE ONE. Superior, in fact, when it came to technique... nothing in THE BRAVE ONE could hope to top the parking-garage sequence of DEATH SENTENCE. It shocked the audience. They gasped. They whispered "Is this a dream?" And the movie tanked horribly.

But THE BRAVE ONE, much as with 1974's DEATH WISH, decides to do the shocking stuff first--and ultimately gives the crowd a chance to CHEER. Which they do. Loudly and enthusiastically. Catch-phrases and everything. The PRO-vigilante film is going to be a huge hit. Because the instinct for instant revenge is always going to be there--and even the most Christian among us, who try to live by "Vengeance is mine, I shall repay, saith the Lord" are secretly thinking "Yeah, okay... but would you at least give me the satisfaction of seeing it HAPPEN?"

THE BRAVE ONE pushes the exact same buttons that Michael Winner and Charles Bronson pushed in 1974--with or without the willing complicity of Brian Garfield. And I'd love to hear the filmmakers admit it.